“I saw her note.”
“She says it’s urgent,” Cassie reiterated.
I looked at my own cell. Shooter had texted four times since I’d gotten in the elevator. Craig Poulton emerged from an office at the far end of the room, and I turned to Frank. “I’ll be back in a second.”
I returned to the reception area, but three men in camo pants were standing there, speaking loudly. I moved to the stairwell and called Shooter.
“We’re about to get briefed,” I said to her. “What is it?”
“We’ve got a problem, boss.”
A man came up the stairwell and nodded at me, an AR-15 in his hand. He moved past my position and opened the door that I’d come out of.
“I went to the service,” Shooter said. “Told them I was a friend of Freddie’s. Which they all took as a girlfriend, I think.”
“Okay,” I said, waiting for the problem.
“Freddie’s aunt reserved some restaurant afterwards for a reception. They invited me to come, and I figured what the hell? I didn’t get much at the service. So I went and mingled. The aunt’s daughter was there, and we struck up a conversation.”
“This would be Freddie’s cousin?” I asked.
“Natalie,” Shooter confirmed. “She told me Freddie would come to Lucas Beach each summer when they were kids. Natalie’s mom owned a beach house.”
“Jo,” I said. “If there’s something urgent—”
“Me and this Natalie sorta hit it off.” Shooter sped up her story. “I went to leave, and she said she needed to tell me something. Could we talk outside?”
“Sure, you said.”
“‘Sure,’ I said. Out by my car, Natalie told me she got introduced to a medical examiner in Hambis. This guy found something funny on Freddie’s body.”
“Wait. Back up,” I said. “What’s this cousin doing in Hambis?”
“Right,” Shooter said. “So Natalie drove to Hambis to see what happened with the trailer and her mom’s property. She went by the police station. One thing led to another, and suddenly she’s in a room with this ME named Levis. He pulls her aside and tells her that the fire burned away Freddie’s soft tissue. He was autopsying a pair of ribs.”
“That’s a candid description,” I said.
Shooter’s voice dropped. “The ME found a knife cut, Gardner. A slice through one of Freddie’s ribs.”
I blinked, remembering the night Shooter and I had been in the trailer. Before we lit the place on fire, I’d told her to work fast with her knife and get the bullet out.
“I must’ve cut through one of the costal cartilages,” Shooter said, her voice growing quieter, as if embarrassed.
A human rib is bone, but as it moves toward the sternum, it becomes cartilage. This softer material helps with elasticity and allows the ribs to move forward, which in turn assists in breathing.
“This ME wanted to know from Natalie,” Shooter continued, “did Freddie have some previous injury to his ribs?”
“What did she say?”
“That Freddie never mentioned anything to her. But it’d been a while since the cousins all hung out. Natalie wanted to know ifIknew of an injury. You know, as his ex-girlfriend.”
“What didyousay?”
“That he complained sometimes. His breathing was labored. It sounded generic and believable.”
“But your conversation was after she talked to the ME,” I said.
“Exactly,” Shooter replied.
